Probably some will include Alex Yoong in this list. But I recently read his biography, The Driver’s Line, and it made me think about some things I didn’t consider before. No, he doesn’t blame everyone else for the fact that he didn’t become a world champion, he is actually very honest and self-critical. But we often do not know the real reasons behind the lack of good results for a specific driver. We don’t know what the circumstances were in each case.

For example, Alex Yoong struggled a lot in Minardi because it was the only car on the grid who had no power steering at that time. He admits that he was actually not prepared for F1 as well and probably some guys on your list weren’t, too. But, then again, if you are a young driver and have a chance to get a race seat in F1 and you don’t know if you will ever have that opportunity again, what do you do? I think the answer is obvious.

Who knows what some of those guys would have achieved, if they had more time to get to terms with their troubles in F1? Both Alguersuari and Grosjean looked terrible last year. Both entered F1 without any appropriate testing in the middle of 2009 season. But today, one year later, one of them seems to be a potential candidate for a RBR seat in 2012, while the other one is on your list.

Finally, the fact that you are able to drive an F1 car for a whole race without trailing the other guys by 1 minute per lap or passing out after 20 minutes, means that you cannot be too bad at all. Let’s have some respect for those guys who are able to do that.

Badoer just has to be number 1 for me- he couldn’t even blame the car for being humiliatingly slow, not when your teammate takes a win and a podium.

Ide and Yamamoto are predictable choices, while Pantano is up there because I remember how terrible he was in 2004. Anyone except him would have scored something in that Jordan.

I’m not even sure if Piquet was as bad as the others on my list in 2008, despite that immature, stupid stunt. But he was abysmal in 2009, both slow and error prone. Like Petrov, but he didn’t wake up when Alonso was behind him because he was never fast enough to have Alonso behind him.

McNish is a Le Mans winner, but like with Zonta, and with Herbert in 2000, sportscar pedigree doesn’t always translate into F1 talent.

you know, those guys that raced in F1 once, when they come back to their countries, they race there and do reasonably well… even Ralf Schumacher scored a pole somewhere in DTM…

Mazzacane has been racing here in 2 different touring car championships, yet he’s never even finished in the top 10!.

About Badoer: people think just about last year. But what did you expected for a guy his age with no racing in 10 years??? He wasn’t gonna score points. Plus that car was tricky to drive. Fisi went from scoring a pole position at Spa to no points and dissapointing performances for the rest of the year.